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Interviewee: Marcie Hinton (MH)
Interviewer: Melissa Bergmann (MB)
MB: My name is Melissa Bergmann and today I’ll be conducting an oral history interview with Dr. Marcie Hinton, professor at Murray State University. Dr. Hinton can you please spell your first and last name.
MH: (Interviewee says and spells first and last name)
MB: Thank you. So where did you attend grades K-12?
MH: Grades K-12 I attended in Paducah, Kentucky. Kindergarten was at St. Paul Lutheran Church and then Concord Elementary to Heath Middle School and Heath High School.
MB: So those middle schools and high schools, were those public or private schools?
MH: Public schools.
MB: In your opinion, do you think there is a difference between public and private schools? Does one prepare you better than the other one does?
MH: Here is the caviat I will say before we even continue this conversation: I firmly believe in public school education I think it is what makes for good community, makes for a good education, makes for understanding people, and providing people with a lot of experience. I spent at least first grade through twelfth grade in public education, and of course worked here at Murray State University which is of course a fine public education institution. So I do think I got a great education. I feel like I was taught, not only by great teachers, but also taught a lot about my community through the students I attended with. I felt like I had a lot of interaction with different kinds of people, and we can talk about that in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic diversity and well just religious diversity, all of those things. I do think public education is a great institution. I think it gives you the best possible experience all the way around with the assistance of of course home support.
MB: Do you think that you wouldn’t have gotten that same diversity if you had attended a private school?
MH: I don’t think I would’ve gotten the same diversity, I don’t think I would’ve, my parents are educators, so I wouldn’t been able to have a private education anyway without a lot of sacrifice and my parents have always been public school teachers as well. So I think you can get a good education either way. I think what I learned from my peers and a sense of community and from teachers in the trenches or community service, really allowed for a great education and a different education than I could’ve gotten at a private school.
MB: Do you remember a lot of standardized testing whenever you were in school?
MH: I do remember some standardized testing while I was in school. I remember that, you know, there was a lot of special preparation about patience and being calm and being well hydrated, all of those kinds of things. I never minded standardized testing. I liked...I felt like it was fun to sort of go through those things and figure out answers and it never felt like it had a lot of consequence to me, not like my standard math tests or anything like that. And I always assumed I did will, when I was probably above average, but not a great standardized test taker by any stretch of the imagination. So I always felt like if I did my best, that was good enough. Sometimes that wasn’t...I didn’t always feel that way in other ways...but I knew that standardized testing, you know the chips fall where they may on that. And I remember feeling like that from first grade on. That everybody said, “just do what you can,” and so it was a sort of a riddle to be able to answer those questions and not feel a lot of pressure from them. Or at least that was not my experience.
MB: So you said that you felt like you were at least a little above average, so as someone that did well on standardized testing and then also as an educator now, do you think that it’s a fair or accurate way to assess a student’s intelligence?
MH: I think it is a small measure among other measures that can be taken into consideration for understanding that sort of thing. I think there are very few tests that actually measure a man very well, so to speak. But I do think it can be used in a nexus of mediating factors of assessment to help people understand a path for themselves or perhaps even what they need to work on.
MB: And could you think of a different or better way that students could be assessed maybe for things like college readiness or other things like that.
MH: Well I think that’s why you have different ways of testing. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination think it is currently a fair or unfair...I don’t have children that do it, I don’t know of those things. So I can’t really assess altogether, but like I said I think it is one part of many parts that can help like college essays, interviews, recommendations, a student’s personal essay, I think all the way around you just need several ways in which to look at a student to know who’s ready and who’s not, and you can’t predict that. And we’re starting to support that with actual social science, that you cannot predict how a person will do, there’s always circumstances that could change those kinds of things, so you just have to do the best that you can with making as fair a playing field as you can and having multiple measures to discover whether or not a student can succeed.
MB: Getting back to your K-12 experience, what was your favorite subject growing up?
MH: Well in first grade it would definitely be reading. I loved to read. I loved all things English, I like social studies. I was...my worst grades in middle school would be writing, I was left handed and did not do that well. The thing I struggled with most was math, but still did well in math, just never felt comfortable in math. I loved health and P.E. But really it was, when things really changed for me was in fourth grade, Pam Estes, my fourth grade teacher after lunch would read us chapter books and read, she read “Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing” and I thought there was nothing better in the world than being able to read or write or all of everything that comes along with that, I thought was the most fantastic thing in the world when I got to chapter books.
MB: And who was your favorite teacher growing up?
MH: I’ve got so many answers for that question, that it’s hard. Like I said, Pam Estes was very definitely a memorable for me because of that. My first grade teacher Mrs. Barkley, I was a very very shy person and she really was sensitive to that. In second grade I remember Mrs. Ball playing the guitar and we had singing circles and I loved that. You know, Mrs. Chandler, oh, Mrs. Chandler in sixth grade, we conjugated verbs on Friday and I love to conjugate verbs! I had a great Spanish teacher in high school. My Freshman English teacher JT Toy when I first got into his class and we first started talking about literature I just thought this is what school is supposed to be about. I mean I’ve always enjoyed school, but that class, which I guess I was a Freshman in high school and it was English, and he played Romeo and Juliet when he showed us a film. And I thought, “This is it, I love this!” But then of course you’ve got...I could just go on. College professors, the first time I ever really enjoyed math was in geometry with Ms. Reeves, and then college professor that I still keep in touch with to this day. I rarely have met a teacher that I did not just adore.
MB: And so do you see like a common thread through all of these teachers, like what, at least in your perspective, makes a teacher good or memorable or impactful?
MH: Um well I guess it’s one that pays attention, that no matter their...they have...I don’t know how to explain it. They have an authority over their subject matter that’s also sensitive to the student. I never felt...I felt paid attention to in school and I felt like there was always this concern about inclusion of people. And that sometimes I was the one that needed to be included and sometimes I was the one that a teacher need to help include somebody else. So I felt like there was just this web of understanding of the class itself that that molded with the subject matter, that almost everybody was quite enthusiastic about their subject.
MB: How do you try to work that into how you teach today as an educator?
MH: Well I never fail at enthusiasm for my subject. I really enjoy what I’m studying and what I do and what I teach. And I do enjoy the interaction with the students, which again I think...I think that the right prescription for teachers and students that even on days that I find trying or frustrating, I never fail to enjoy students and I think that’s sort of key to making the classroom experience good. And then just the interaction of expert to soon to be experts to a sense of community and understand and a freedom to have a conversation, ask a question, those kinds of things that I never felt I never felt deprived of any of those things in my education experience.
MB: If you had to pick like a most memorable moment, you talked about a lot of things that you remembered from certain teachers growing up, did you have something that really sticks out to you from middle school or grade school that was a bid moment for you?
MH: Um. I guess my two go to things would be Mrs. Estes and the reading of those chapter books, I thought...I found everything that I found interesting in there and everything I learned and could remember and what I wanted to do in the reading of, “The Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing.” That just started my journey of reading everything...well it didn’t start it because I read books my entire life and books were read to me since day one. But that really sort of collects that experience there. I guess those are...that and fifth grade um being asked to...well I guess I would call band in there in middle school and high school. Being asked to be a leader which I had not necessarily experienced before that made a big difference for me and made me step up and feel responsible, is certainly a seminole experience. I also had a bad experience with a chemistry teacher in high school where I thought he was treating us unfairly and particularly treating one of my friends unfairly. And when he sent her to the principal’s office I got up and left too. And he got mad, and he said, “Where do you think you’re going?” and I said, “Well you’re gonna throw me out in a second too so I’m just going to go on to the office with her.” And um being scared to death because I had never been in trouble in my life and I thought I can’t believe I just walked out of a class, that isn’t something that I would necessarily do. And talking to the principal about that, and the principal believing me. The teacher was only there for a semester, I mean that was the one bad experience and then I stood up and said this is a bad experience and that people believed me, they made it better, was certainly also a big moment for me. And I think I was a sophomore in high school.
MB: Do you think that that then carried on to later in your life? Did it...you know...did that act of standing up and being almost rewarded for it, having someone believe in you, did that carry on into the rest of your life?
MH: Yes I do because I’m very much a pick your battles kind of person. There’s so much that you can be angry about or think is an injustice or um protest about. But that experience, again support of a community that I felt supported by, and that I supported. You know, listened when it was important for them to listen. And I feel that I still do that, I can let things roll of my back, I don’t have to fight every battle, but I know, I still feel I have that sense of this is a battle that I’m willing to get in trouble for, that this is worth fighting for, and I think that was out of that one experience. Both a bad experience in the classroom, but it was because of all the experience that had come from being with that same group of people and in that school district and being apart of a community that really worked all together. By staying in this public school with these people from first grade to twelfth grade.
MB: You said your parents were educators, how did that change your education experience or influence it in any way?
MH: Well I did not always want to be a teacher or be a professor. That wasn’t necessarily a goal of mine until I started becoming one, altogether. I always... I loved how many people they knew in the community, for one thing. I loved, I always respected teachers and thought it was such an important job and I thought that from the very beginning. And I knew that there were a number of different ways that people get educated and could educate and so I felt like that was a very creative way. Because a lot of people when they get into a major they think there’s one thing that you do and there’s not one thing that you do, ever in anything, but education is one of those that you think you have an education major, you’re gonna become a teacher and you’re gonna teach, I think most people think they’re gonna teach K-12 in a public school. I know a lot of people...they taught middle school, they taught high school. My dad became a guidance counselor, became a college administrator. My mother ran a health education department at a hospital, she ran an academic support center at a college. I just saw them both as educators with education values, and had vibrant and widespread careers that always kept them apart of the community, that kept their brains sharp, they were lifelong learner and encouraged...they are lifelong learners and encourage lifelong learning. And so I saw that as even aside from a profession, it’s the kind of person I wanted to be and the kind of community participant I wanted to be. And so I think it was a huge influence and that it really was a creative outlet that I did not know that was happening in me until I thought huh I think I’ll go get my PhD and teach college.
MB: Do you think that you still would’ve became an educator, had they not been in the profession?
MH: I don’t know, I don’t know. I felt relaxed and a sense of authority on a college campus always because I grew up on one. And I never knew that people didn’t go to college, I thought I had to, I didn’t know that was a choice. And on up to get a Master’s degree and a PhD, I mean it was just something that one did. So I don’t know if I had done that otherwise. And you know, they had a lot of teacher friends, their best friends were educators and so I’m sure it all could’ve been vastly different had I not had that community.
MB: And where all have you taught over your teaching career?
MH: I have only ever taught college, and college journalism and mass communication classes. I first taught as a graduate assistant at University of Tennessee, or graduate associate at University of Tennessee, where I had my first own news writing classes. Which I felt, who knew, I sort of wanted to go to college because I liked the research and I liked writing, that’s why I wanted to get a PhD, but from the second I stepped in the classroom I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the creativity and the challenge of it. So I taught there for three years. I taught a class a semester, well I taught two classes sometimes as well, at University of Tennessee. And then at Knoxville. And then Berry college in Georgia, which is a small private faith based college. And then Middle Tennessee State which is a regional public university like Murray State. And then I taught at Lawrence College which is a small Catholic college in Dubuque, Iowa. And then Murray State.
MB: So after having taught at public universities and then having gone to public school, what do you think the main issue is with public education?
MH: State support. State support. State support. State support. It amazes me that not everyone can connect success of community, success of people, by supporting schools. That’s what most people in a community so most of their lives in participate in school, formulate friendships around school, all of those things. And teachers care for students, take care of them when parents can’t. The fact that it is not well supported or well understood by people when they get out of school amazes me. And especially how the governor of the state of Kentucky right now seems to vilify educators in general, is just astounding to me because I don’t think anyone gets to where they are today without, even if it’s a bad experience like the one experience that made an impression on me, it makes an impression on me, not because of the bad teacher but because of the school and well supported I felt. They’re the ones that taught me I was capable of doing that, and so how anyone thinks they get to where they are now without numerous teachers and school communities is beyond me. So I think state support is the main issue right now. Maybe on a federal level as well. I think on a local level we all know teachers and we all know teachers that care and we all know students who are thriving, and that it’s important to pay attention to that on a grassroots level, on a community level. I think people are doing the best that they can and I think it is why it’s not seen as an important public institution that should be supported monetarily, through word, and should be supported in...not just financially, but in all of those ways, is just beyond me. It’s the most important community one can have. And it’s the only piece in a lot of rural places as well...it’s what you do....and that’s what we do for 18 years of our lives! If you have a hope of success you have to have those 18 years in that kind of community with those kind of people.
MB: O.K. well I think that’s everything, thank you so much!
MH: My pleasure.
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A public education advocate
in trying times
By Melissa Bergmann Education seems to be on everyone’s mind lately after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin presented his pension reform plans in 2018.
At a time of school teacher protests and public education uncertainty, there are still those who believe in public education. After spending her entire K-12 experience in public school in Paducah, Kentucky, and teaching at multiple public universities, such as Middle Tennessee State University and Murray State University, Dr. Marcie Hinton has proven herself as a lifelong public school proponent.
“I firmly believe in public school education. I think it’s what makes for good community, good education, makes for understanding people and provides people with a lot of experience,” Hinton said.
Hinton, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Murray State, believes the diversity she encountered in public school helped her to learn about her community “in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic diversity and religion.” She believes that she would not have experienced the same diversity in private school.
The Teachers Make the Difference
Hinton said she’s always liked school, in all grades that she attended, and rarely met a teacher she didn’t like.Having parents who were educators, she grew up in the academic community, and never knew that not going to college was even an option. She loved reading, English and social studies, and said that her worst grades were in writing because she is left-handed and math.
When recalling her time in school though, it wasn’t the coursework that made the most impact, but the teachers. Hinton had no problem remembering her most impactful teachers. Her first grade teacher, Mrs. Barkley, knew Hinton was a shy student and was very sensitive to that. In second grade Mrs. Ball played the guitar and had singing circles. In sixth grade Mrs. Chandler conjugated verbs on Fridays. Her high school geometry class with her teacher, Ms. Reeves, was the only time she ever enjoyed a math class. There was one teacher though, that stood out above the rest, and sparked Hinton’s love of reading and chapter books.
“Things really changed for me in fourth grade,” she said. “Pam Estes, my teacher, after lunch would read us chapter books. She read ‘Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing’, and I thought there was nothing better in the entire world than being able to read or write or everything that comes along with that.”
Sometimes the Bad Means as Much as the Good
Hinton can only recall one time in her K-12 experience where she had a negative experience with a teacher, and even that experience, she believes, has bettered her life.
Hinton said she had a bad experience with a high school chemistry teacher, where she thought he was treating her and her friends unfairly. When he sent her friend to the principal, Hinton got up and left with her, saying “you’re going to throw me out in a second too so I might as well go on to the office with her.” Hinton said she was “scared to death” because she had never done anything like that before. It was how the school reacted that made all of the difference. Hinton said the school believed her and the teacher only stayed there for a semester.
She feels she’s carried with her entire life the ability to stand up for what she believes in, because of that one experience.
“Even if it’s a bad experience like the one that made an impression on me, it makes an impression not because of the bad teacher, but because of the school and how well supported I felt, and how they’re the ones that taught me I was capable of doing that," she said.
Public Schools Today
Hinton believes experiences like the ones she had because of public education are just as important today as they’ve ever been, but that education, especially in Kentucky, is under fire right now.
What’s the solution? She believes the answer is state support. Hinton said as a public institution, schools should be supported monetarily, in word, and financially.
“It amazes me that not everybody can connect success of community and success of people by supporting schools,” she said.
Not everyone can see the importance in supporting an educational institution, but as long as there are have educators like Marcie Hinton, there will always be those who refuse to be silenced when advocating for the country’s future in education, and therefore its future as a whole.
Original Format
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